Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Atsuya Furuta was one of Japan's greatest catchers. He was a two-time MVP, a nine-time best-nine, and a 17-time all-star. He played 18 seasons with the Yakult Swallows. Despite the long career, he actually got a relatively late start. He was undrafted out of college, and went to play for Toyota's team instead. He did well enough in the industrial leagues that Yakult drafted him in the second round in 1990. He appeared in 106 games that year. Furuta excelled at every aspect of the game (well, except running, he was a catcher after all), winning a batting title and topping 30 home runs in a season (and more than 200 for his career). He was mentored by the great Katsuya Nomura, about whom more later.

In addition to his work on the field, Furuta was both a manager (indeed, a player-manager) and the head of the Japanese Player's Union. He led a strike against the proposed merging of the Kintetsu Buffalos and the Orix Blue Wave. The merger went through, but the players got the owners to agree to add a new team to the league (and so not eliminate any roster spots). The length of the strike: two days.

The card is from the 1992 BBM set. I don't care for the design: the brown border makes it look like 1987 Topps (one of my least favorite), but it's not even faux wood, it's brown with little bits of text saying 'BBM'. Anyway, this was close to the beginning of Furuta's career, he wouldn't retire until 2007.